We often view emptiness as a negative condition, a symptom of depression, despair, or grief—an assessment furthered by authors like Franz Kafka or the existentialists, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Offering an alternative view, _A Philosophy of Emptiness_ reclaims these hollow feelings as a positive and even empowering state, an antidote to the modern obsession with substance and foundation. Digging through early and non-Western philosophy, Gay Watson uncovers a rich history of emptiness. She travels from Buddhism, Taoism, and religious (...) mysticism to the contemporary world of philosophy, science, and art practice. Though most Western philosophies are concerned with substance and foundation, she finds that the twentieth century has seen a resurgence of emptiness and offers reasons why such an apparently unappealing concept has attracted modern musicians, artists, and scientists, as well as preeminent thinkers throughout the ages. Probing the idea of how a life without foundation might be lived—and why a person might choose this path—_A Philosophy of Emptiness_ links these concepts to contemporary ideas of meditation and the mind, presenting a rich and intriguing take on the concept of emptiness and the history of thought. (shrink)

The Buddhist view of the mind - how it works, how it goes wrong, how to put it right - is increasingly being recognised as profound and highly practical by scientists, counsellors and other professionals. In The Psychology of Awakening, this powerful vision of human nature, and its implications for personal and social life, are for the first time brought to a wider audience by some of those most influential in exploring its potential for the way we live today. These (...) include: David Brazier Jon Kabat Zinn Francisco Varela Joy Manne Geshe Thubten Jinpa Mark Epstein Gay Watson Maura Sills Guy Claxton Stephen Batchelor Deeply relevant, accessible and authoritative, The Psychology of Awakening will be of interest to all those who wish to understand the workings of their minds a little better and who are also seeking new ways of mastering the challenges - personal, professional and cultural with which modern life confronts us all. (shrink)

What's it all about? Why am I here? Is there a God? Why do bad things happen? What happens when we die? All the big questions - and some interesting answers - from Gay Byrne's popular TV show.

This paper aims to examine the role that the various vehicles of marketing communications can play with respect to communicating, publicising and highlighting organisational CSR policies to its various stakeholders. It will further endeavour to evaluate the impact of such communications on an organisation's corporate reputation and brand image. The proliferation of unsubstantiated ethical claims and so-called 'green washing' by some companies has resulted in increasing consumer cynicism and mistrust. This has made the task of communicating with, and more importantly (...) convincing, an organisation's stakeholders vis-à-vis its CSR credentials even more difficult. This paper argues that marketing communications tools can play a major role in conveying a company's CSR messages and communicating a more socially responsible image. (shrink)

Most discussions of fiduciary duty focus on medical decision-making, but that is not the only context in which the concept is important. Investment advisers have fiduciary duties to their clients: in this essay, we address those duties. Many advisers refuse to help their clients with ‘socially responsible’ investment plans, for a variety of reasons, among which are fiduciary concerns. We argue that the reasons generally given not to pursue a religious, environmental, or social investment strategy are mistaken, and, most (...) importantly, that an investment adviser’s fiduciary duties may be met while providing such alternatives to clients. (shrink)

The essays by celebrated authors in this 1991 book cover themes fundamental to economics: the influence of benevolence, altruism, justice and religious principles in our treatment of others in society; and the bases of rationality in decision making under conditions of uncertainty. These common themes are given a wide range of perspectives by the contributors, who discuss whether not just a 'rational' but also a 'thoughtful' economic man can be fitted into a sophisticated version of the orthodox model of (...) man as a self-interested maximizer, or whether a radical upheaval in economic analysis is needed to accommodate him. The book is an examination by leading authorities of not only the role of rationality and morals in economics, but also the implications of conventional conceptions of rational economic man for all economic study. It constitutes a powerful argument for greater richness and subtlety in ideas about the motivations of individuals in their economic behaviour. (shrink)

As a young gay man, David Bennett saw Christianity as an enemy to freedom for LGBTQI people, and his early experiences with prejudice and homophobia led him to become a gay activist. But when Jesus came into his life in a highly unexpected way, he was led down a path he never would have predicted or imagined. A War of Loves investigates what the Bible teaches about sexuality and demonstrates the profligate, unqualified grace of God for all people. David describes (...) the joy and intimacy he found in following Jesus Christ and how love has taken on a radically new and far richer meaning for him. (shrink)

Using 10 years of publication data (1999-2008) from 10 leading business ethics journals, we examine global patterns of business ethics research and contributing institutions and scholars. Although U.S. academic institutions continue to lead in the contributions toward business ethics research, Asian and European institutions have made significant progress. Our study shows that business ethics research output is closely linked to the missions of the institutions driven by their values or religious belief. An additional analysis of the productivity of each (...) highly ranked institution suggests that business ethics research is highly concentrated in a limited number of eminent scholars within each institution. (shrink)

You've been looking for Jesus. At one time or another you have likely felt conflicted by two opposing desires: the longing to be truly seen and known, versus the drive to hide from real intimacy. This universal human experience points to one simple truth - we want to be loved, but are ashamed of our unworthiness. Only one Person could ever meet you in this dilemma, seeing your darkest secrets without flinching, offering the power to change, and loving you without (...) an agenda. This Person is Jesus. Before meeting Jesus, Ken Williams describes himself as a homosexual who was tormented by shame and on the brink of committing suicide. But in the person of Jesus, Ken discovered the affirmation, love, and wholeness he had been seeking. Since then, Ken has worked tirelessly to help others experience the same hope he found. Today, his life's work is to cultivate a productive and compassionate environment for those bound by sexual shame, insecurity, and fear, so that they can thrive in righteousness, peace and joy! In The Journey Out​, Ken Williams will... Reveal that change and freedom from same sex attraction are possible Demystify homosexuality and gender identity issues Help you to make a deep, authentic connection with Jesus Offer wisdom for supporters: parents, family, friends, or pastors If you are longing to be deeply known and unconditionally loved, your heart is crying out for Jesus. You will meet Him in the pages of The Journey Out, and discover a new life filled with true hope and enduring joy! (shrink)

In the tradition of Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, James Hagerty weaves a philosophy of gay ontology -- the nature of being, or reality -- around his own life experiences. He traces individual gay existence from its origin ("Homosexuality precedes sexuality") through three ordinations to an ideal in which "the gay man perceives and takes responsibility for his inherent station of High Priest..". Drawing from the work of Sartre (Being and Nothingness), Hagerty builds a functional philosophy/religion with (...) gay pride at its heart. (shrink)

The Religious RightReligious right is using every means to impose its restrictive view of sexual and reproductive rights on everyone under the umbrella of a so-called culture of life (CL). The CL prohibits the direct killing of innocents (but not, apparently, letting them die), and requires that all sexual activity be open to procreation, thus restricting access to abortionAbortion and contraception. All this is alleged to be based on God’s will and to constitute the only objective moralityMorality. But there (...) is no epistemological basis for this claim, the strictures are inconsistent, and the rules create unnecessary misery. Those most at risk from the sexual strictures are women, children, and gay men. The risks are greatly magnified in Third World countries because of povertyPovertyand lack of accessHealth/ healthcare, right toaccess to even the most basic health care. Yet the Bush administration is doing everything in its power to impose the CL on such countries by means of its foreign policyForeign policy and aid programs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ahmadis: Community, Gender, and Politics in a Muslim Society. By Antonio Gualtieri. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 192. Hardcover $65.00. Paper Cdn $24.95 / U.S. $19.95.American Knees. By Shawn Wong. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2005. Pp. xxi + 229. Paper $14.95.The Art of Worldly Wisdom. By Baltasar Gracian and translated by Joseph Jacobs. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. (...) xiii + 114. Paper $5.95.Bashō's Journey: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Bashō. Translated by David Landis Barnhill. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xvii + 191. Hardcover $59.50. Paper $17.95.Bringing the Gods to Mind: Mantra and Ritual in Early Indian Sacrifice. By Laurie L. Patton. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Pp. xv + 289. Hardcover $49.95/£32.50.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.A Chinese Ethics for the New Century: The Ch'ien Mu Lectures in History and Culture, and Other Essays on Science and Confucian Ethics. By Donald J. Munro. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2005. Pp. xlv + 158. Hardcover $33.00.Chinese Theories of Reading and Writing: A Route to Hermeneutics and Open Poetics. By Ming Dong Gu. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 334. Hardcover $85.00.A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang: The Language of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs, and City Life. By Christopher Hutton and Kingsley Bolton. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 492. Paper $28.00.Ghazālī and the Poetics of Imagination. By Ebrahim Moosa. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Pp. xiii + 349. Hardcover $59.95. Paper $22.50.Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya. Edited by William M. Bodiford. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. x + 317. Hardcover $48.00.The Harem: Inside the Grand Seraglio of the Turkish Sultans. By N. M. Penzer. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. 277. Paper $14.95.Ideals of the East: The Spirit of Japanese Art. By Kakuzo Okakura. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xiv + 106. Paper $5.95. [End Page 365]An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. By Jing-Nuan Wu. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. 706. Price not given.Jews and Arabs: A Concise History of Their Social and Cultural Relations. By S. D. Goitein. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xv + 263. Paper $12.95.The Logic of Nothingness: A Study of Nishida Kitarō. By Robert J. J. Wargo. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp xi + 241. Paper $25.00.The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. By Raghavan N. Iyer. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 449. Paper Rs 520.00.Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. By T. K. Seung. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005. Pp. xxviii + 370. Hardcover $83.00. Paper $27.95.Of Guilds, Companies, Corporations, and Governance: A Conceptual Sketch. By Leonardo R. Silos. Makati City, Philippines: Asian Institute of Management, 2005. Pp. xvi + 238. Price not given.The Path to Rome. By Hilaire Belloc. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. ix + 251. Paper $12.95.The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgātā : A Study based on the Evaluation of the Commentaries of Śamkara, Rāmānuja and Madhva. By S. M. Srinivasa Chari. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2005. Pp. xxvi + 294. Hardcover Rs 575.00.The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. By Kalyan Sen Gupta. Burlington, VT: Ash-gate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. ix + 103. Hardcover $79.95.The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse. By Thomas Michael. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xi + 170. Hardcover $60.00. Paper $21.95.Three Mountains and Seven Rivers: Prof. Musashi Tachikawa's Felicitation Volume. Edited by Shoun Hino and Toshihiro Wada. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. 2004. Pp. xx + 903. Hardcover Rs. 1800.The Unity of Mystical Traditions: The Transformation of Consciousness in Tibetan and German Mysticism. By Randall Studstill. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005. Pp. xii + 304. Hardcover @89/$127.00.Writing the World: On Globalization. Edited by David... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Note.

William James called his classic work, The Varieties of Religious Experience, "a study in human nature." This volume recognizes that a fundamental feature of human nature for James is that we have a conscious and a subconscious mind and that the subconscious mind is deeply implicated in the religious life, especially in conversion and other experiences of spiritual enlightenment. In this volume, Capps addresses religious melancholy, the divided self and discordant personality, religious conversion, the saintly character, (...) and the prayerful consciousness. In addition, the cases of two clergymen--one deeply troubled, the other exemplary of the spiritual person--are also presented. A brief discussion of James's view of religion as the generator of hope concludes this introduction to his insights into the religious life. Given that James was a popular writer in his own day, this book is intended to make his insights accessible to general readers. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe article investigates which epistemological considerations justify how religious life fits into the school life, and examines the debate on the participation of religiosity in the education system. I do this, first, by addressing the pedagogical implications of the distinction between public and private as maintained by Richard Rorty and, second, by reconsidering the pluralist metaphysics held by William James as an alternative path to understanding and re-addressing the question of religious life in school life. The article analyzes (...) how the strict separation of projects of individual self-creation and the public sphere, as defended by Rorty, poses problems in implementing pluralism in democratic societies and their educational institutions. (shrink)

Cresp, Mary Some months ago while driving I heard an interview with writer Alan Moore on the radio and was so captured by his comments about trends in modern society that I had to pull over to the side of the road and stop to concentrate on what he was saying. I ordered his book, No Straight Lines, and found he presents an inspiring plea for a more human-centric world, more able organisations and more vibrant and equitable economies relevant to (...) the world we live in today. His descriptions so correspond with my experience that, although the changes in Religious Life over the past fifty years are often seen as something that occurred only in church circles, I conclude that they are part of a world-wide search for ways to serve humanity better, to search for meaning in the work people do and to find viable alternatives for the ways that things were done in the past. Because my immediate experience of Religious Life is confined to the Sisters of St Joseph, my comments are framed around that experience. However, through interaction with members of other Congregations, I know their journey parallels that of Josephites in many respects. (shrink)

In a further bit of irony, disaffection with higher education has shifted that peculiar mode of understanding that we call religious into a rather privileged position. To be sure, many of those people who call themselves religious would not engage in this sort of understanding, but that need not detain us here. The central point of these reflections will be an attempt to display a mode of understanding which one might properly call religious. I shall undertake this (...) from a frankly philosophical perspective, but one which remains conscious that philosophic reason also stands in need of illumination. My own conviction holds that attempts of men to delineate the mode of understanding called religious have often been most useful in recalling us to that style of living called philosophic. I think this will prove to be more and more true today, as we try to understand what it means to do philosophy after its demise has been announced and celebrated. (shrink)

Publisher's description: The Phenomenology of Religious Life presents the text of Heidegger's important 1920621 lectures on religion. First published in 1995 as volume 60 of the Gesamtausgabe, the work reveals a young Heidegger searching for the striking language that eventually formed the mature expression of his thought. The volume consists of the famous lecture course "Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion," a course on "Augustine and Neoplatonism," and notes for a course on "The Philosophical Foundations of Medieval Mysticism" that (...) was never delivered. Heidegger's engagements with Aristotle, St. Paul, Augustine, and Luther give readers a sense of what phenomenology would come to mean in his later works. Here, Heidegger reveals an impressive display of theological knowledge, protecting Christian life experience from Greek philosophy and defending Paul against Nietzsche. The appearance of this first English translation marks a significant event in Heidegger scholarship and affords a unique look into his phenomenology. (shrink)

This article addresses the debate over religion in the public sphere by analysing the conception of ‘religion’ in the recent work of Habermas, who claims to mediate the divide between those who defend public appeals to religion without restriction and those who place limits on such appeals. I argue that Habermas’ translation requirement and his restriction on religious reasons in the institutional public sphere rest on a conception of religion as essentially apolitical in its origin. This conception, I argue, (...) remains embedded in a standard secularization framework, despite Habermas’ claim to offer a new account of secularization. This approach betrays the complex reality of the political constitution of religion and the religious constitution of politics, as demonstrated by the current debate about marriage rights in the USA. In mischaracterizing the inherently public and political dimensions of religion, Habermas undermines the effectiveness of his normative framework. (shrink)

The Phenomenology of Religious Life presents the text of Heidegger’s important 1920–21 lectures on religion. The volume consists of the famous lecture course Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion, a course on Augustine and Neoplatonism, and notes for a course on The Philosophical Foundations of Medieval Mysticism that was never delivered. Heidegger’s engagements with Aristotle, St. Paul, Augustine, and Luther give readers a sense of what phenomenology would come to mean in the mature expression of his thought. Heidegger reveals (...) an impressive display of theological knowledge, protecting Christian life experience from Greek philosophy and defending Paul against Nietzsche. (shrink)

Ukraine has left a prominent mark in world religious history. I will not begin to substantiate my opinion here broadly, but I believe that it was Ukraine that gave way to Eastern Christianity, which ensured the preservation of Orthodoxy as its specific denomination. Moreover, in the thirteenth century, through its resistance to the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols, it preserved the Christian world from the onset of Islam. Through the Vladimir tradition, Ukraine has maintained the desire of the two branches (...) of Christianity to fulfill the covenant of Christ so that they all may be one, and may offer a possible path to this by their Union of Brest. Ukraine gave an example of the survivability of oncational Christianity, because no matter how much our souls died, our Ukrainian Christianity and the Poles with the Vatican and Muscovy did not die from our nation. Ukraine has exemplified poetic, artistic rather than holo-socialized Christianity through its organic union with the popular beliefs of the day before it. Ukraine gave the example of living, unskilled Christianity, which corresponded to the mentality of the Ukrainian as a creator, a hard worker. Ukraine gave in to somewhat feminized Christianity, given the significant role that women played in the lives of their people at the level of household and housewives. (shrink)